Cross country begins season at Shippensburg
Senior Christine Esposito led the Bullets with a 4th-place finish at the Shippensburg Invitational (Photo by David Sinclair).
By Emily Kleinburd, Staff Writer
The Bullets’ cross country team started off their season with a challenging meet, racing against Division II team, Shippensburg University, and top regional teams Dickinson College and Elizabethtown College, among others.
The women’s team finished in fourth of seven, while the men’s team came in sixth. Gettysburg’s top performer of the day was Senior Christine Esposito, who finished the 4,000-meter race in 15:20 for a fourth place finish.
The Lady Bullets fell behind Shippensburg, Dickinson (ranked no. 8 in the region) and the Shippensburg Alumni, but beat out Elizabethtown (ranked no. 2 in the region). Junior Alex Bull and Senior Kerry Campbell also placed in the top 20, contributing to Gettysburg’s score and finishing in 15th and 18th places, respectively.
“We’ve had a great start to the season so far and I’m very optimistic,” Esposito said.
After finishing their first race of the season against strong competitors, Esposito reflects on what the team will focus on in practice: “Our biggest focus has been on pack running. The closer we can bring our runners together, the better we will finish. We have also been working on consistency and getting faster throughout the race so that we can finish strong.”
The men’s team was led by two first-years, Jackson Davis and Tyler Sadka, in the 6,000-meter race. Davis finished in 21:16 to place 32nd, while teammate Sadka came in 14 seconds behind him at 21:30 for 41st place.
First-years will definitely have a large impact on this season for both the men’s and women’s teams, the men adding 13 runners and the women adding 10.
Esposito noted that the “depth of the team is advantageous.” Senior Emily Smith added, “The first-years were able to stay with the team through pre-season and are very talented, once they adjust to our routine and mileage they should be performing at their peak level.”
The Bullets will race in their second meet of the season this Friday, Sept. 7, when they take on Franklin & Marshall at 6 p.m. at home.
